I’ve always enjoyed the color green. And I love the smell of beer (although the taste of it is another matter entirely). But if you asked me if I loved St. Patrick’s Day, the answer would be a loud and resounding no.
WHAT?? BUT YOUR NAME IS PATTIE!!!! YOU HAVE TO LOVE MARCH 17TH!!!! Actually, just because my name is Pattie does not in any way relate to my level of enjoyment of this holiday. And even though my family migrated here from Ireland over a hundred years ago, I have enough dignity to know that does not qualify me to wear a shirt that says “Kiss me, I’m Irish.” Unless your parents have a strong Irish accent, or your family migrated here in the last 20 years, I won’t believe that you’re really Irish.
Especially if you’ve never even been there.
But anyways, let me tell you my first experience with this fabled holiday: I was a freshman in college and at the high-point of my naivety when I was asked to go to a study party at a friends house on St. Patrick’s Day. Little did I know that all the emphasis was on the “party” and none on the “studying” part. So, like a fool, I showed up gasping triumphantly after dragging my school books seven blocks to get in some quality studying time in. Did I mention that the test was scheduled for the next day at 8am?
When I got there, the party was already raging and I was thrown into the mix without another thought. I was offered alcohol, but being the ignorant freshman that I was, I told them politely that I was not old enough to drink. They laughed in my faces. I got two scoops of cookie dough ice cream and in a final effort spread out my book on the crowded kitchen table. About ten minutes later someone had poured whiskey into my ice cream bowl, and my book was covered in sticky beer residue. In exasperation, I decided, what the hell, you’re only an impressionable freshman once.
I grabbed a beer and slung myself down on the couch for some serious rock band competition, and before I knew it, I was being cajoled into doing an Irish car bomb. For those of you lucky enough to have never experienced an Irish car bomb, it is something so horrible that it’s not worthy of being called a drink. It requires you to drop a shot of Bailey’s cream liquor into a full cup of beer, and then try to chug the whole thing as fast as you can before the cream curdles. Essentially, unless you are the champion of the beer chug, you are transformed into a very crude cement mixer of sorts; with little squeaky bits of curdled cream stuck in your teeth and clogging your throat. I choked one down, and sat down on my butt right on the floor, giggling madly while tears streamed down my face, as a result of my near-choking experience.
That was the last thing I remembered before I woke up in my dorm room just in time to vomit curdled alcohol, ice cream, and the remnants of dinner into my garbage bin. It was four in the morning and my stomach was churning. Going to sleep wasn’t an option so I spent a very depressed three hours moping in the rec room trying not to vomit before going to class, still half-drunk. It was not one of my proudest moments, but I was at least gratified to see that half the campus felt no better than I did. And I didn’t do half bad on the test either.
But ever since then, I’ve chosen to stay safely tucked away from the world on St. Patty’s day, despite everyone’s plea that “St. Patrick’s would be nothing without Pattie”, because even looking at the color green, or thinking of cream for too long makes me sick to my stomach.